In this vlog, Matt Ragland shares that he and his wife Morgan are temporarily relocating from Nashville to Chattanooga. The move is driven by a family goal to eliminate debt quickly. Morgan will start a travel‑nursing assignment in Chattanooga, which pays roughly double her regular nursing salary, while Matt’s remote job at ConvertKit allows him to work from anywhere. They will keep their Nashville house, using it as an Airbnb or long‑term rental to generate income, and they have secured a low‑cost apartment in Chattanooga. The initial stay is planned for 8‑10 weeks, potentially extending to several months, with the possibility of later moves to Colorado, Idaho, or Utah. Matt emphasizes their flexibility, the financial “secret sauce” of higher nursing pay, rental income, and cheaper living costs, and asks friends, family, and viewers for prayers and support. He invites questions via comments, Facebook Messenger, or text, and reassures that the Nashville home is not being sold and they intend to return.
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Canaan, silence and justice. High five! Yeah! We're leaving Nashville tomorrow, and it happened kind of fast. If you know us well, then you know this is something that we've been thinking about about for a while. So here's the thing, we have some goals as a family of getting out of debt. For that to happen, we need to make some changes. One of the things that I think Morgan and I do really well as a family is the ability to be flexible, the ability to change our surroundings, and the ability to— yeah, the ability to just try something new and try something unique. So what we're going to be doing for at least the next 8 weeks and probably a lot longer, up to a year perhaps, is we're going to be doing some travel nursing. Morgan starts her first assignment in Chattanooga next week on Monday. So we're moving to Chattanooga this weekend. We have an apartment. Our home in Nashville, we're not selling it. It's too good of an investment right now, and so we're not selling it. We are going to be doing some Airbnb with it for a little while. We're also considering just straight up renting it for 6 months to a year. So that's, that's our big news. It's not that Morgan's pregnant or anything like that. Spoiler alert. But that's what we're gonna be doing for a little while. And we might be in Chattanooga longer than 8 weeks. We actually have our apartment rental is going through April. And so that's probably how long we'll be there. We're also looking at going out to Colorado. We're thinking about Idaho. We're thinking about Utah. We've wanted to go out west for a long time, pretty much as long as we've known each other. We've wanted to live out west for a little while, and this could be a good opportunity to do that. So why, you know, why do this? One is that we, we can, and we have the flexibility ability to do it. My work at ConvertKit is flexible enough, and I'm extremely grateful for that. And the other thing is that travel nursing pays really well. We want to completely get out of student loan debt. We want to completely get out of, yeah, any kind of credit card debt. We want to pay off the car that we bought a couple of years ago. Except for the house in Nashville, we want to be completely debt-free, and this is a way to accelerate that. I don't want to be paying off debt well into my 40s, with the exception of the house, and I would even like to, you know, really hustle past that. Now, are we leaving Nashville long term? I don't think so at this point. Like I said, we're not selling the house. We love that house. We love the family and the friends that we have in Nashville. Like, they're really important to us. It's one of the reasons that we have been here, that we've stayed here. For 3.5 years now. We love our church at Midtown 12 South. While we're in Chattanooga, we are going to be kind of back and forth between Nashville and Chattanooga. Basically, if Morgan's not working and there's no one renting the house through Airbnb, we'll just come back. And because a lot of people that I work with are here in Nashville, and I love spending time with them. You know, this is my office, and this is Lovely. So that's, that's the news. We are temporarily leaving Nashville. I don't know what God has for us long-term, but we would, you know, like to still be here. But we need to make some changes to reach our goals, and that involves kind of moving around through travel nursing, living in smaller, cheaper places. Until we can, yeah, feel, you know, feel less of the debt burden that we have right now. And it's as simple as that because really our secret sauce is, um, for this— Morgan gets paid almost twice as much as a travel nurse as she does, you know, just working as a regular nurse. So she gets paid double. Um, we make money, or at least we make money on renting or air putting the house on Airbnb. So we're making more money on the house. We're making money on the house. Morgan's making almost twice what she's making now. I'm still making the same thing, and we're living at a much cheaper rate. Like, the place that we're renting in Chattanooga right now is $750, $775 a month, including super fast internet, which I am happy about. So that's a lot less. That's hundreds of dollars less than we're paying right now. And so that's really the secret sauce. It's money off renting this house in Nashville. It's Morgan making twice as much, and it's living cheaper in another city. Again, just to reiterate for our Nashville friends and family, doesn't mean we're, you know, fully like leaving forever. I don't know what God has. I don't know what God has for us. There. But, you know, we're not selling the house. We do want to come back. That is our current plan, and I don't know even what the rest of this year is going to look like, but we are going to, we are going to take a step. We are starting this weekend of going to Chattanooga for 8 to 10 weeks at least and doing some travel nursing there. So if you have any questions, go ahead and leave them in the comments and in the description box if you're watching this on YouTube. Would love to chat with you. You can just hit me up on Messenger on Facebook or text me, whatever. Would love to kind of chat with you about this. But thanks for watching this. This was going to be a pretty short video, but I wanted to get the message out there. Be praying for us. Keep us in your thoughts and prayers because it's a big thing. Anytime you move, we've We've moved a lot as a family. I moved a lot growing up, and Morgan and I think this is— I'm not going to count on live video because that is very dull, but this is probably the 7th or 8th place we've lived in 9, almost 10 years of marriage. And so it's something that we're used to, but it's still— it always takes a lot. So your thoughts and prayers are very appreciated. Thanks for watching this. Let me know any questions that you have. I appreciate everyone watching. I've been growing this since my birthday, so October 9th. It's been exactly— I hate counting live— 4 months, and I've been really pleased with it, but it's time. It's time. It's okay. Should I have kept just this one sideburn? I feel like I'm, you know, a British sea captain or something. Alright, moderately fresh-faced Matt is back.
